Fun Still Life in Ingrid Christensen's class!!

This was a wonderful excercise done in Ingrid's class!This is a picture of my view of the still life and my easel.  We under painted our canvas randomly with the colours we were going to use. Some people used very muted colours evenly spread, and as you can see I chose bright fun colours! We were not to try to place any flower shapes and if we had, we were to move our canvas to the upside down position. I really enjoyed the randomness of this start and it was almost a relief to have the canvas covered with so many colours, it was no longer precious. I have started to add the red flowers.

Red Flower Still Life

Oil on canvas panel 12" x 9"

This is the end result. I really enjoyed this evening and it went by really fast. It was difficult for some of my classmates to start a painting like this and I think this is a love it or leave it way to start a painting. Again, the beautiful colours do not show well in this picture.

Fish Creek Park - 26 C

Fish Creek Park -26 C - SOLD

Oil on canvas 16" x 20" in a barn board frame

This painting was based on a photograph my friend Sue took on a very cold winter day last year. I loved the colours, the beautiful blue sky reflected in the snow, the crispnessness that can be felt in her photo as well as the location! The buyer recognized it as Fish Creek Park and wanted art representing Calgary for his new condo. My thanks to Sue and Vishnu!

MRU Library Art Gallery - Winter 2012 2nd painting

This is the other painting in the Mount Royal University Art Gallery's winter show. The Art Gallery displays include photography, paintings, jewelry, pottery, and a variety of art work. Judy and Joan do a wonderful and artful display that is very eye catching and draws you in for a closer look!

Lady Bug and Vase Still Life

 8" x 8" Acrylic on Watercolour paper

Double matted in a 12" x 12" black with red trim frame

I really had fun with this painting. I was playing with different shapes and shadows. When I was done, I peeled the dried acrylic paint off my palette and loved the mix of colours and shapes. I basically painted them back into the painting. It is unfortunate that the depth can not be viewed in this flat picture, it is very textural.

MRU Library Art Gallery - Winter 2012

This painting is now in the Mount Royal Library Art Gallery for the winter display. I had it in my office and really enjoyed the variety of colours. It is a watercolour and acrylic painting painted in a watercolour style. I love the bright red Anthurium with the muted leaves behind. I looked at the Anturium on line and made up the rest around them. It is painted on a full size water colour sheet and double matted in a dark brown wood frame.

 

Anthurium Garden

Watercolour and Acrylic on watercolour paper in a 22" x 28" frame

Self portrait #2

After having one class on a self portrait with Ingrid. I decided to start fresh on my own at home, where I wasn't distracted with the beautiful art coming alive all around me in the class. I also thought I would take a few more pictures of how the painting developed for my own reference later. What I found interesting is how focused and concentrating my facial features were. This apparently was serious business in both self portraits!

This is the underpainting where I am trying to place all the features as well as get the size and placement correct. I toned the canvas first with a warm golden yellow.

The painting is now at mid completion. I have also worked on the background and am quite happy with how it is at this point. Will post the final product at a later date when I get time to work on it again. The good news, the subject is always close at hand!

First self portrait #1

This is my first self portrait done in Ingrid Christensen's figure and still life class. This is the second set of classes I am taking with Ingrid. The thought of ever doing a self portrait never occured to me mainly because I would of had no idea how to tackle it. It was very interesting and intimidating looking at the work done in the class, the styles were all so different! I had a hard time focusing on my painting as I could of happily walked around the class just watching the paintings evolve.

We were to do a thumb nail sketch and decide on the placement on the canvas and the angle of the view. I thought more of a sideways angle would be interesting, but I kept forgetting to put my head at that angle and was painting more face on. This lead to my face shape changing, as well as my eyes and nose in the wrong spot! Ingrid helped me align my painting with a more straight on view as this is what I was really seeing. You can tell even without the features defined how hard I was concentrating!

The picture above is how far I got in class #1. Thank goodness this was over 2 class times. One artist completely finished her painting in that class. I found out afterwards she was a professional portrait artist in water colour. Now you can understand why I would of rather watched than painted!

Solitaire with Blue

Solitary Blue

Oil on hard board 8" x 6"

OX110103

This is another painting done from my Creative Path friend Deb's photograph. I love the flowing feeling and the flower petals trying to hang on at the end of it's season. I painted this one in more lively colours which is more of how I like to paint. It is so fun being able to create my own reality in colour!

Missing Timi

Well it's been back to work in the New Year and I miss the small picture of Timi I had in my office so I have painted another one in oil. This one is more realistic than the previous one but was just as fun to paint. I had given the previous one as a gift to Tammy (Timi's owner) so she could enjoy it in her work office. Timi has such a character face and is a very expressive dog. Of the pictures in my office, everyone comments on Timi.

"Timi III"

Oil on masonite 10" x 8"
OX110104

Cold Walk Through Fish Creek Park, Calgary

One of my very favorite Christmas gifts was from my friend Sue. She made a calendar for me with her artful photographs. She has always been generous and allowed me to paint her photographs, changing them at my whim...now I have 13 more pictures to choose from (including the front cover)!!!

This picture is in her calendar and is called "Cold Walk Through Fish Creek Park". She took the picture last year when it was -26C and everything was frozen, still and crisp (including herself). I painted part of that picture and whipped out my "artistic licence" and changed the composition a bit. The beautiful blues on the trees were in the calendar picture, not sure if Sue pulled out her licence, but I was certainly attracted to it. Gotta love it when inspiration is wrapped as a loving gift!!

"Cold Walk Through Fish Creek"

Oil on hard board

10 1/2" x 12 3/4"
OX110102

Happy New Year!

I leant my camera out on Dec 26 and just got it back so can happily post again. This picture is of flowers I have painted before. The flower picture was taken after the first frost by Deb in her backyard. She brought it as our Creative Path paint challenge and we all loved our finished pictures. I chose a different layout and used 3 flowers instead of the 1.5 last time. Permanent Green Light was used as an under painting and duller colours were used to depict the flowers. This was going to be the end of the year posting, so fitting. I enjoyed painting this one as much as the first and look forward to trying it many different ways.

End of the Season II

Oil on masonite board 10" x 8"
OX110101